Real
by Lrigelbbub
Summary: What goes on in Alec's head, some insight into how he feels. (please review - sould i write a sequel)


DISCLAIMER: This story is based on the television show, Dark Angel. I do not own Dark Angel, any of its characters or plot lines.  
  
REAL  
  
The city shone with lights, like tiny fireflies, giving his home an ethereal appearance. Home was a lucrative word though, Seattle, the sprawling mass of crumbling buildings and unsightly mess, was more like the place where he just tended to live. And that's exactly what he did. He lived each day as it came. No plans, no calling, no real money, he knew the saying tended to extend to phrase no worries, but he had plenty of those. He worried if he would ever get a real job, he worried about his friends, and he worried if he would live to see tomorrow. Sometimes he didn't know why he got up in the mornings, but it eventually came back to him. It was to see her, to make sure she was alright, to make sure she was alive. He knew that she wouldn't ever accept him but he strived to please her anyway, he desperately wanted her to look at him not with loathing or disgust but with pride. So each day he scraped by, just to see tomorrow and hope that one day he would do something right by her.  
  
The wind rose and surrounded him, some might have found it discomforting and cold, but to be surrounded, to be completely covered, it warmed him. The wind would always be there and for the longest time it was his only friend. The days; the years he spent inside Manticore walls, hardened his heart. He was a soldier of superior rank to his comrades in arms, and he knew that he had their respect, their admiration, but he never really had their friendship. So the wind kept him company, told him secrets. It was his only companion - constantly there, no strings attached - no judging, it was just there.  
  
So when he stood alone on the top of the space needle, looking out on the sprawling city, the crumbling building, the deserted roads, he wasn't alone and yet sometimes like right now he had never felt so alone in his entire life. Today was September 17th, and like he had for every year since her passing he was remembering whose headstone those words were engraved on.  
  
Rachel had been his first real friend. She had taught him so many things about life and love; things about just being human. He wasn't exactly human but that didn't matter, with her he had felt human, he felt real. Three years have passed since he first met Rachel, two since she had died and still the memory of her disgust left him feeling ill to his very core. Every year though he tried not to, he wept for her. Maybe one tear or maybe two, but inside he felt a torrential flood coursing through his veins.  
  
He had been in awe of her. She had had an air of naivety, a sense of innocence that he had never known before. Rachel was unlike anyone he had ever met and she had loved him as he had her.  
  
Manticore tried to wipe her existence from his memory, but something so pure can not be forgotten. He forced himself to just bury her memory deep within his core, his heart. He knew she couldn't be replaced and she'd always reside there, and until he met the rouge he didn't think he'd ever experience emotions so strong again.  
  
He had acknowledged this particular emotion a long time ago, but kept it to himself. He didn't want to give her, to burden Sandeman's Chosen Saviour with something else that was both unwanted and unwelcomed. So he carried his secret with a heavy heart.  
  
"I know you are there Max. What do you want?" he asked knowing for certain that it was her that stood as the top of the ladder of the Needle.  
  
"I needed you," she exclaimed, "Where were you? I had to take Logan with me."  
  
He hung his head in shame. He had forgotten that they were going on a raid tonight; he should have told her that he couldn't make it. And he could just picture her face and knew that she was sending death glares to his back right this instant. He could feel her gaze on him. It seared through him, she scorched his senses. He felt alive.  
  
"Had something else I had to do." he stated.  
  
"What?" she all but yelled at him. "It was more important then the good of Freak Nation?" she demanded to know.  
  
"Yes I had to remember," he answered softly.  
  
He kept his head down, but could picture her face, her eyes would be on fire, she'd open her mouth to yell and then close it again because she was too stunned to speak. He felt her rather then heard her come closer and finally he saw her sit down beside him.  
  
"What's the matter?" she finally asked.  
  
A million answers raced through his mind, but he settled on, "Nothing Maxie, everything is just peachy."  
  
"That's crap and you and I both know it."  
  
Yep he knew it. Everything was wrong. He had no life to speak of and yet he was living. He had no job, no money, he was living in a toxic waste accident site, more commonly know as Terminal City. He lived in constant fear that White was going to attack, the entire world hated him and his kind. He had no future except that as long as he existed he technically did have one. But what was the point of living, of having a future, when you live in constant fear, you fight to survive and the worst of it was he didn't have anyone to share his non life with.  
  
"You wouldn't understand Max."  
  
"Maybe I would. Explain it to me."  
  
"I can't."  
  
"Again with the crap Alec."  
  
"I'm nothing Max. My entire life is a sham. I hate what I have become, I hate that I live in fear because the rest of the world hates what I am. I'm not even real."  
  
He looked at her face, into her eyes, saw the shock that registered there before he looked away again.  
  
"Of course you are real Alec. We all are. Sure we might be different to everyone else but we care, we can be touched and we experience emotions like every other 'human' in the world."  
  
Alec couldn't even look at her, "Emotions like love."  
  
"Yes, like love. We can find that too."  
  
He only nodded; he turned his gaze towards the city lights again.  
  
Max touched his arm, "Come on lets go home." She took her fingers away and the wind swept through and took their place and for the first time in his life, its presence sent a chill down his spine. He turned his gaze skyward and smirked. 'If only she knew,' his mind whispered to his heart, as he stood up and turned to follow her home. Knowing tomorrow would be again filled with worries. Petty things but mostly his day would be filled with her, just like they all were.  
  
His non life, his existence was always about her. The rouge that captured his heart and she'd always be his Maxie. And one day, he would finally prove himself to her and she would be proud of him, and if that's all she could give to him than he would take it and be grateful, because, as he watched her long dark hair sway in the slight breeze as the descended to Needle, he realised that she was his life, his reason for being, and like Rachel had once done. Max; X5-452, made him come alive. She made him real. 


End file.
